


solving the puzzle

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bad Weather, Cabin Fic, Civil War speculation, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Future Fic, On the Run, POV Phil Coulson, Phil Coulson is hopelessly in love, Puzzles, Unresolved Sexual Tension, anti Inhuman sentiments, bad puzzle metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 17:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5384216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson and Daisy try to figure out how to kill some time at the Retreat while she is on the run. Puzzles are the least entertaining entertainment ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	solving the puzzle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notcaycepollard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notcaycepollard/gifts).



“Thank you,” she says, when Coulson puts the cold beer in front of her. “I couldn’t figure out where to go on my own.”

The storm raging outside makes him a bit anxious, but he’s a lot more relaxed now that they are finally in the Retreat and he knows no one has followed them.

“I’m just glad I can help,” he says.

“Help? You got me out of DC alive.”

She sounds not generally Daisy-grateful, but grateful-grateful, and though he only got the aftermath of what happened to her this morning Coulson guesses it was a lot more serious than she let on. Not that she let on much - the flight and then ride here she spent mostly in silence. To the point where he started to worry she had gotten hurt and wasn’t saying. But that wasn’t it.

They left in a hurry and he suddenly realizes there’s not much to do in the cabin. He was just happy at the idea of spending some time with her, after so long. 

But he will try to keep her entertained.

Daisy narrows her eyes when he presents the box to her and sits across the table.

“A puzzle? Really?”

“I looked around the house,” he tells her, apologetic. “There’s absolutely nothing else for entertainment.”

“I could think of a couple of things,” she teases, trying to make him blush maybe. But he holds her gaze, a lot more comfortable with her flirty side these days. Not working together anymore helps. If he thought Daisy was being even remotely serious… but she isn’t. She gives him a little smile and proceeds to examine the so-called entertainment. “And why would Fury keep these silly puzzles around? It’s not like the Avengers are children.” Coulson gives her a blank look. “ _Oh_.”

They both chuckle together.

“So what did we get?” he says, turning the box to see.

“Eiffel Tower,” Daisy says. “Romantic.”

“And not clichéd at all.”

She shrugs. “I guess it’ll kill the time until the beer kicks in,” she jokes.

Coulson would worry but if someone in the world deserves a break, that’s Daisy Johnson.

He can tell her head is still back in DC, in the narrow escape from the anti-Inhuman squad that prompted her to risk calling Coulson, and he bets she feels guilty over that too, putting him in danger by bypassing their usual protocol. She holds a piece of the puzzle in her hand, staring at it like she doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s a center on, no smooth side.

“Common wisdom demands we start at the corners,” Coulson tells her, taking the piece from his hand and putting it down, brushing his fingers against hers. He tries to get her attention to something other than the national manhunt she’s been escaping from, or whether this house is safe enough to keep them off the trail. He chooses another piece. “What about this one?”

Daisy looks at it and snaps out of it quick, her sharp eyes finding the correct piece that goes right above.

“That’s two,” he says. “Only four hundred and ninety-eight to go.”

That wins her a smile, and the way she has of relaxing into her chair, taking a sip of the beer, and leaning over the puzzle, ready to give it a try. She soon gets talking and Coulson gets the feeling that she hasn’t been able to talk to anyone in a while, that her life has been a lot more lonely that she’s let him known when they meet and catch up.

“I remember that in the orphanage we only had like remnants of puzzles so the pieces never fitted because most of them belonged to a different set. We tried to make do anyway. It got pretty brutal.”

Coulson can’t help but grin at her Dickensian recollections. Daisy catches him.

“What?” she asks, suspicious that he might be making fun of her.

He’s not making fun of her. He’s just missed her a lot.

“It’s been a while,” he tells her, trying to sound more dignified than he feels.

Her eyes soften at that.

“Yeah, we haven’t seen each other in what? Three weeks?”

“More like five,” Coulson corrects her.

“Aw. Someone has missed me.”

“Maybe,” he says, trying to sound casual and deflecting by getting up and grabbing another beer. 

Outside the window he can see thunder.

It’s not like he can blame Daisy for her lack of availability lately. Meeting up is not that easy since she’s been on the run, and though him being a free agent makes it a bit less risky they still have to take precautions. And it makes sense that she comes to him when this sort of thing happens - Mack and May are still trying to help, but they are limited by working inside an organization, a legitimate one, and Coulson no longer has that problem.

“It’s nice not having to talk to you without jumping through hoops to secure a line, and not watching what we say in case someone might be listening.”

It’s nice seeing your face when I talk to you, he mentally adds, remembering all those night lying in bed talking to her, trying to imagine where she was (she couldn’t tell, safer that way), who she was with, what kind of face she was making as she talked.

Daisy agrees. “That is nice.”

Part of Coulson’s usefulness to her cause is that no one associates him with it. So they can’t risk being seen together, and they can’t let many other people know about their connection. That limits the time they actually spend hanging out. Coulson knows it’s not fair to be disappointed about something so small when Daisy is the one being hunted, but he resents not being able to just pick up the phone and call her to tell her the silliest shit he was thinking at the moment, like they did when he first left SHIELD.

“But maybe you’ll tire of me,” she adds. “This time I need to stay hidden for a while. I really blew it back there. You’re going to have to put up with me for a few day.”

Her smile is hopeful but hesitant, like there’s a chance in hell Coulson might think it some sort of imposition.

“It’s going to be unbearable,” he jokes.

She relaxes her shoulders. “On the other hand, we can finally catch up on all this puzzle-solving we’ve been meaning to do.”

He chuckles, looking around. The day has gone dark with more than just the storm. It will be time for dinner in a couple of hours. That could distract Daisy, he thinks. They don’t have much, but Coulson is creative, he can come up with something that requires four hands - or kind of _four_ hands, if he wants to make the old joke. He’ll figure something out, his job is to get her out of her head for a while, keep her from thinking about the mess outside.

“I used to think this place was so isolated,” she comments, following Coulson’s gaze towards the window. “Now it doesn’t seem isolated enough for what I need.”

She sounds fearful, a kind of noise that’s been building in her voice for months. Coulson wonders if she can hear it herself.

“You’re safe here,” he says. Then regrets it. “Sorry, I can’t promise you that.”

“That’s okay,” she says, not wanting to dwell into it. “I’ll be safe. I’m just a bit starved for company.”

“Now that I can do,” he tells her, smiling warmly.

“And entertainment,” Daisy adds, pointing at the puzzle between them. “Funny, I’ve never really liked these things.”

“But you like the metaphor,” Coulson points out. She frowns at him. “You used it a lot in your podcasts.”

“You remember _that_?”

“Of course.”

He looks away, concentrates on the “task” at hand. You should start from the corner but he’s actually trying to fit a couple of random pieces, no plan. He remembers listening to _Skye_ rant from her tiny van (he didn’t know this detail then) and how she’s use the puzzle metaphor and how Coulson thought that was so naive, not realizing he was the naive one and she was wiser than she imagined.

“Well, maybe I was wrong,” Daisy says, a bit sadly, putting a couple of pieces together in a totally half-hearted way.

“What do you mean?”

“All that talk about pieces fitting together and solving the puzzle themselves… maybe we are puzzle pieces, but we’ve been thrown to the ocean and we’re just floating, trying to find more piece to fit and build something, but we’re too scattered so we never really achieve anything.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” Coulson says.

She draws a tired hand over her face.

“Sorry. It’s been a rough three - sorry, _five_ \- weeks.”

“I used to wonder if there was even a puzzle after all,” he tells her, reaching his hand to her wrist, touching her gingerly with his prosthetic. “But I was taught that the pieces didn’t have a value in themselves, just the bigger picture.”

“SHIELD talk.”

“Yes. Now I know it’s not just what a piece can do for something bigger than itself. I know a piece can be important, and it can decide what the bigger picture is, it doesn’t always have to follow the picture on top of the box.”

He’s probably mixing so many metaphors here and sounding quite pathetic but he doesn’t care.

“What changed your mind?” Daisy asks, catching up.

He cocks his head to one side, speaking carefully.

“Those podcasts were very convincing,” he says, only half joking.

Daisy stares at his words.

“Phil…”

And then, before they can say anything more definitive…

“Shit.”

The lights are gone, cut off by the storm, and they are in complete darkness.

It makes him nervous, this kind of total darkness you only get in the country. He’s not used to it. He tries to get up, a bit panicky.

“Ouch!”

“What did you do?” Daisy asks, her voice a lot calmer than he feels.

“I banged my knee with the table.”

“I heard that. What were you trying to do?”

“Getting up to see if the backup generator still works.”

“In the dark? No way, let me.”

“Why would -?”

“Because I can _see vibrations_. I know what’s in front of me. I won’t trip and split my head open and bleed to death. Unlike _some_.”

“Hey!” Even in the dark he can feel her glaring at him. It’s not the same as her amazing powers which allow her to see in the dark, but it’s something. “Okay, just be careful. And quick.”

He hates the idea of staying in the dark in this house while she goes out, anxious that he might be left behind for good.

 

+

 

She comes back, drenched and shaking her head.

“Generator’s busted. We’re on our own.”

Luckily despite the storm the weather is not too cold, so they don’t have to worry about that. Coulson keeps thinking about the fact that she basically told him she can see in the dark. He feels guilty for thinking it’s wondrous, everything about her powers - because now it’s not the time to think like that, because the world wants to punish her for that wonderful gift and Coulson should not be thinking about how much he loves what she is.

While Daisy changes her clothes and dries her hair a bit Coulson moves painfully slowly through the kitchen gathering all the candles they have and lighting them up.

When Daisy comes back she sits in front of the puzzle again, picking up her beer and nodding approvingly at Coulson’s effort to cast out the darkness.

“Candles, beer, and a 500 pieces puzzle. Nice moves, Phil.”

They flirt now. That’s what they do. It’s friendly and easy.

He chuckles alarmingly loud. He wishes. He is not used to her extended presence in his life anymore. They used to live under the same roof for years and that seems like a strange luxury he can’t quite believe he ever had. He wasted it, of course. The _waste_. Now their meetings are just a matter of hours, sometimes even minutes - a mission together, a meal from time to time, all those late night conversations. When things feel safer they speak on the phone almost every day, but it’s not the same. He can’t wake up in the morning and just decide he can walk into a room and just see how Daisy is doing. The goddamn waste. _Years_ of it. Coulson wants to slap past versions of himself for it. He wouldn’t do it now, he doesn’t think so.

“Hey, look, we have this whole corner solved,” she says, pointing at the puzzle. “Apparently we’re very good at this.”

Coulson stares at her. In candlelight her features are even more dramatic. And her hair is still wet and clinging to her cheeks.

“Yes, we are,” he agrees, not sure what they are talking about anymore.

“This calls for a celebration,” she declares. Her fucking energy, her brightness. She’s being hunted by three different government agencies and most people on Earth think she’s some kind of monster and she manages to still be like this, talk like this, _feel_ this. Coulson doesn’t get it, could spend the rest of his life trying to get it, trying to solve the puzzle. “Another beer?” she asks. “Before they all go warm because we have no power anymore?”

He nods and she gets up, walking to the kitchen.

It’s not like the candles grant them a lot of light but it’s enough for Coulson to see where he’s going when he decides to get up and follow her.

When she turns around with the cans in hand she is not expecting to see him behind her, so close. He startles her.

“ _Jesus_ , Coulson, what the-?”

He grabs her hips and brings their mouths together.

She tastes of beer and rain.

The kiss is deep but not invasive. Daisy kisses back through her surprise.

It’s darker in the kitchen and when he pulls back he can’t see her face properly.

Daisy puts down the two cans of beer and grabs the collar of his sweater, backing them back against the kitchen table, sliding her mouth against Coulson’s with the same kind of restrained passion with which he did. They really are alike, he thinks fondly, as he twists his hand into her hair and pulls her head back so he can lick the roof of her mouth. The noise she makes when he does this - and in the darkness and against the thunder it sounds amplified - makes him instantly hard and he presses his body against her so she knows. That winds him another pleased, unbearably sexy low groan.

She pulls back and Coulson is not sure if he’s going a bit too fast. He thinks he’s been going too slow, actually, but he guesses that’s a matter of perspective. But when he makes out Daisy’s expression she’s smiling openly at him, and she looks happier than he’s seen her in ages and his stomach drops, he finds he would do anything to keep her like this. In the last eight months he has been woken up in the middle of the night by her calls, drive for hours to secret locations to meet, been dragged from the debris of a collapsed building, and gotten a couple of bullet for her, and all that is nothing compared to what he would do to make her smile like this more often.

“It was a pick-up line,” she says, gesturing.

“What?”

“Talking about puzzle pieces and how they _fit_. I was trying to sound…I don’t know. Dirty? And you didn’t seem to get it. I thought you didn’t want…”

Coulson looks at her horrified. How long had she been hitting on him? Hours? Months? _Years_? The stupid waste of it.

He kisses her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t - fuck, I’m such a loser.”

He laughs. Daisy laughs with him, wrapping her legs around his waist.

Then she goes serious, brushing her fingers along his mouth.

“I can’t keep you safe, you know that,” she tells him. Coulson thinks about the dangerous life she leads, about the hoops they have to go through when they want something as simple as a phone conversation, and he knows this, whatever this is, will not be easy. It will be hard and it will hurt as hell and Coulson is not willing to give it up any time soon.

“I don’t care,” he says, kissing her neck. He can feel her fighting with her own feels - he knows she thinks she’s cursed, that’s not going anywhere, he knows she has spent the last few months pushing everyone she cares about aside, to protect them, and he wonders why she has kept him after all. As he kisses her some of that tension disappears and she sighs and moans against him. “Please, Daisy. May I take you to bed?”

“So formal,” she mutters, scraping her nails across his nape, making Coulson wonder if he’s going to come right here and now. “You’re not my boss anymore.”

And does he know it.

He grabs her by the waist and lifts her off the table, decided to carry her to the bedroom in his arms. It would be more dramatic and romantic if it wasn’t for the fact that Coulson has to stop and ask Daisy to tell him how to get there, because he can’t see a thing in this darkness.

 

+

 

“This might be the hardest puzzle to solve yet,” Daisy says, laughing against him while they try to figure it out. Coulson groans, frustrated.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, a bit ashamed. Who knew the sex wouldn’t be the hardest part for him. “It’s been a while since I’ve slept in the same bed with someone else.”

“And it’s been a while since I’ve slept in a decently-sized bed,” she says, patting the mattress like an accusation. “It’s on me too.”

“If you want me to sleep on the couch…”

She shakes her head. “I told you, I came here for the company,” she says in a flirty voice. 

And Coulson knows _this_ is not why she came here, just a very lucky development, but a guy can dream and feel flattered.

“I feel like there are too many arms here,” he says, as he tries to pull her closer into a comfortable embrace.

“No, not like this, I need to - put - my shoulder somewhere.”

She groans and turns, and they try it with her between his arms, resting on her side.

“This won’t work,” he tells her.

She props herself on one hand, throws him a glance over her shoulder. “I can’t feel that.”

“It’s hurting me and it’s hurting you,” he elaborates, glancing at his prosthetic.”Even if I take it off it’ll still be uncomfortable.”

“No, no. Come on, we can do this,” Daisy cheers him. For a moment Coulson thinks he’d be happy to just stay up all night listening to her energy. But he’s tired, and also he wants to cuddle. “We’re good at this. We put together like a dozen pieces of that stupid puzzle in just one afternoon.”

He laughs.

“It’s nice to hear you laugh,” she comments, more serious now.

“I don’t laugh?”

“Not as much as you should,” Daisy says, brushing her lips against his. “I would do anything to keep on making you laugh like this.”

She cups his face in her hands.

Coulson has a realization.

“I have it,” he says. “It’s been right in front of me the whole time.”

“What are you talking about?” Daisy asks, amused but looking at her lover as if he’s lost his mind.

“How to solve the puzzle,” he says, lying down again and turning his back to her.

“I think I know where you’re going with this,” she says, pressing her palm against his spine.

“I prefer being the little spoon anyway,” he says. “I think. I don’t remember.”

“Come here,” Daisy says, voice all husky behind his ear as she wraps one arm around Coulson chest and pulls him towards her body.

That works, he thinks, as he feels his body fitting into the curve of Daisy’s heartbeat naturally, almost as if his limbs moved of their own volition. Daisy’s leg moving to rest against the back of his knees feels like the missing piece or, if he really were to mix his metaphors, like the key unlocking the whole thing.

“Told you we were good at this,” she whispers against his nape, quickly falling asleep.


End file.
